"There seems to be a playbook in the library of hell where this strategy gets taught to demons: 'Destroy the traditional family in order to create the perfect setting for evil to gain a foothold.'" – Dan Langenfeld ("Grandma, Is That You?")

YOU SOW'A-DESE, YOU REAP'A-DESE (my version of the Euripides joke). Kids! While they twiddle their thumbs on their "telephones," the world keeps burning. George Orwell predicted all the perpetual wars, but George Soros, BLM, and the DOJ have brought the burning – and jihad – home. And the White House says that the looters and burners have legitimate "concerns." Don't we all, eh? Well, I take Charlotte seriously because I have three 'great' grand-nieces there who have been raised right. And they understand their history.

"The Light and the Glory; Did God have a plan for America?" by Peter Marshal and David Manuel (1977) is the best book I've ever seen on our early days, from Columbus to the Puritans. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Arthur Miller tried to give them a bad name, but Perry Miller was a historian "who has consistently exposed the popular negative stereotype of the Puritans for the patently false view that it is."

The New World: it was called that because early settlers considered it a New Israel or a New Eden where they could "start the world over again." A few excerpts from "The Light and the Glory":

"There is no question that the Puritans took sin seriously . . But they had good reason: they knew that the very success or failure of God's New World hung on their willingness to deal with sin – in themselves first, but also in those who had been called with them to build the kingdom [including their children] . . "

That was "the tone he set in his famous catechism on the Ten Commandments which Puritan children had to memorize and recite on Saturday afternoons . . 'Who are meant by [honor thy] Father and Mother?' The correct answer was: 'all our superiors, whether in family, school, church, or commonwealth' . ."

Superiors? Too many of today's kids think they are superior to their teachers, all preachers, and their friendly neighborhood police officer. Marshall and Manuel wrote:

"Here is the greatest difference between the Puritans and most present-day American parents: we are not willing to risk losing the 'love' in our relationship with our children by persevering with them in the matters of discipline.

"The biggest single cause of the breakdown of the American family is that so much of what we call love, the Puritans had another name for: idolatry . . . they knew that their children did not belong to them; they belonged to God.

"In other words, parenthood was a sacred responsibility in Christ, and if they failed to live up to it, they would be directly accountable to God.

"God's heart abounds with tenderness and compassion and joy, but it also abounds with discipline. God loves His children too much to permit them to persist in willfulness.

"When we Americans exalt our children, they start to rebel against the role into which they have been cast – as love generators and love objects. With increasing resentment they come to see that what their parents regard as love is in reality a kind of smothering, possessive control, a vicarious reliving or ego projection . . Some children are willing to play the game for the sake of their own ego gratification [but] . . God help the future mate of such a spoiled and self loving person."

[I might note that this book was published even before the extreme "self esteem" movement got going in public education.]

Pity the kids nowadays! They are becoming spiritual orphans. They may have a biological parent or two in the house, but don't call it a home. Discipline is not a high priority. The right to "sleep in" is a higher priority. Just ban homework and start school later in the morning. Truancy is "no big deal." Shoplifting is nothing at all.

Marshall and Manuel conclude this section:

"The American family does indeed seem to be unraveling because of the almost universal ignorance of the idolatrous nature of Christ-less 'love' . . "

Which brings us back to Charlotte and the world-wide web. My grandnieces are very, very grateful for their growing up in Charlotte. Their grandmother came from Venezuela years ago, before it became a Third World, socialist hell-hole. If I were a black living in Charlotte, I would be so thankful that my ancestors came here, voluntarily or otherwise. Otherwise I might not have even been born, or, been living somewhere torn by civil wars (do you realize what ISIS did to blacks in Libya, or Boko Haram, to blacks in Kenya?).

If I were a black living in Charlotte, do you know how easy it is to pass exams for a high school diploma these days? BTW, I might even have a better shot at a college scholarship than if I were white. White businessmen aren't "oppressing" anyone. There's no motive for them to keep their potential customers poor, but there IS motivation for liberal politicians to keep you poor. And BLM is NOT an extension of MLK,JR.'S cause!

By the way, 70 percent of those arrested in Charlotte weren't even from Charlotte; it's an astroturf rebellion, bought and paid for (unlike grassroots such as the Tea Party). And speaking of "roots," the Bible warns strongly that there is a "root of bitterness" that can destroy a person and a People.

Such a bitter root can lead to the 'library of hell' where demons are taught, "Destroy the traditional family in order to create the perfect setting for evil to gain a foothold."

P.S. This year is the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and the start of WWII. I recently stumbled upon a family heirloom, a booklet published by WLS: "News Review of 1942." Here's a sample from this week of September, that year:

September 22 – Moscow admitted [retreats] in Stalingrad, saying that the Germans took two more streets at the cost of 300 lives. In revenge for anti-Nazi activities seventy hostages were slain at Bordeaux.

September 23 – Only stone houses still standing in Stalingrad. . . The British raided Benghazi and the Allies raided Buna on New Guinea. Wendell Wilkie spent two hours with Joseph Stalin.

September 24 – There was little change at Stalingrad, but the world was amazed at the Russian resistance there. All avenues of escape had been cut, and the order was to stay there and die or drive the Germans out.

I was less then two months old that week. I've always been grateful that I didn't have to even be aware of the world's situation ("My kingdom for a horse; 300 bodies for two streets!").

Another reason to give thanks that you were born in America. A reason not to try to bring it down with anarchy! We've already fallen a long way from the Pilgrim and Puritan days. It's time to stop the slide. Please pass it on! The success or failure of "God's New World" may hang in the balance.

Curtis Dahlgren

Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in southern Wisconsin, and is the author of "Massey-Harris 101." His career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton... (more)

Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in southern Wisconsin, and is the author of "Massey-Harris 101." His career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton. In the intro to The Fenton Bible, Fenton said:

"I was in '53 a young student in a course of education for an entirely literary career, but with a wider basis of study than is usual. . . . In commerce my life has been passed. . . . Indeed, I hold my commercial experience to have been my most important field of education, divinely prepared to fit me to be a competent translator of the Bible, for it taught me what men are and upon what motives they act, and by what influences they are controlled. Had I, on the other hand, lived the life of a Collegiate Professor, shut up in the narrow walls of a library, I consider that I should have had my knowledge of mankind so confined to glancing through a 'peep-hole' as to make me totally unfit for [my life's work]."

In 1971-72 Curtis did some writing for the Badger Herald and he is listed as a University of Wisconsin-Madison "alumnus" (loosely speaking, along with a few other drop-outs including John Muir, Charles Lindbergh, Frank Lloyd Wright and Dick Cheney). [He writes humor, too.]